Gaston Orellana biography

Gaston Orellana, born in 1933 in Valparaíso, Chile, to a family of Spanish origin from Extremadura, is a Spanish artist among the most important of the post-war period. This cultural blend, between his Chilean roots and Spanish heritage, has helped shape an artistic personality of international significance, with work marked by experiences in the Americas, Europe, and the United States.
Gaston Orellana begins his artistic training at the Escuela Experimental de Educación Artistica di Santiago, in Chile, and then continues at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de Viña del Mar. During his training years, he also undertakes archaeological studies at the Universidad de Chile, which lead him to delve into the primary components of pre-Columbian culture, traces of which can be felt in various phases of his work.
In 1954, the artist meets the famous poet Pablo Neruda, initiating an intense friendship that lasts until the poet's death. Towards the end of the 1950s, Gaston Orellana moves to Madrid, where he founds the Grupo Hondo in 1959, a milestone of the Nueva Figuración, a movement that will receive wide recognition in the European context. The year 1959 marks another significant event in the artist's career: participation in the exhibition The New Images of Man at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York. This experience marks the beginning of his international success, culminating in 1965 with his move to the United States.
During his stay in New York, Gaston Orellana immerses himself in the city's vibrant cultural scene, establishing close ties with the avant-garde culture and prominent figures such as Allen Ginsberg and Arthur Miller. In 1970, he is invited to the Venice Biennale with a solo exhibition in the Spanish pavilion. The exhibited works, including the famous painting El tren en llamas, are acquired by the renowned collector Joseph Hirshhorn for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington DC.
During his stay in Italy, Gaston Orellana experimented with new techniques, from glass sculpture in Murano to ceramics in Liguria, in Albisola, and became part of a fertile exhibition context. He returned permanently to Europe in 1986, where a major exhibition was organized at the Museo Español de Arte Contemporaneo in Madrid, curated by Germano Beringhelli. During this period, Gaston Orellana's art underwent a significant evolution, as demonstrated by the exhibition at the Casa das Artes in Vigo, Spain, in 1995. Here the artist presented the new Orellana, with a painting enriched by techniques derived from terracotta work and the incorporation of themes of greater depth."
In 1995, the art dealer Christian Stein, at the Venice Biennale, declared that Gaston Orellana is the most interesting artist that Spain has produced after Tàpies and Miró. In 1998, Stein organized a solo exhibition of the artist at her pavilion at the ARCO fair in Madrid. The last years of Gaston Orellana show a further evolution of his works, with the adoption of graffiti techniques never before used in painting and the addition of collages of various elements, such as metals and antique mirrors. Through paintings shaped like letters and the use of multiple canvases, Gaston Orellana introduces a literal dimension into painting, while still maintaining the use of metaphors. In 2005, the artwork Crucifixion n1 was exhibited for the first time at the Holy House of Loreto, owned by the Vatican Museums. In the same year, the artwork La cama escarlata (NY 1967) was included in the exhibition Il male at the Palazzina di Caccia of Stupinigi in Turin.
Gaston Orellana's work in the latest period shows a marked evolution compared to his New York works. He begins to create colossal assemblages and polyptychs, using graffiti techniques never before used in painting and introducing collages of various elements such as metals and antique mirrors. With paintings shaped like letters and the juxtaposition of multiple canvases, Gaston Orellana brings painting towards the art of objects, communicating the literalness of the thing itself, while maintaining the use of metaphors. Gaston Orellana has marked the post-war art scene with his bold exploration of new pictorial languages. To date, the Archivo Gastón Orellana, founded in 2018, is dedicated to the preservation, protection, and dissemination of his impressive artistic and intellectual heritage.